PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC) – Trinidad and Tobago will host Guyana in a Twenty20 Festival here at month-end, as both teams prepare for the Caribbean Twenty20 Championship in January. Both sides, previous regional T20 champions, will face a T&T ‘B’ team along with a national Under-23 unit, in the tournament set to run from December 28 to 30.
Two matches will be staged per day over the three-day competition at Guaracara Park in Pointe-a-Pierre, which will replace the annual North/South Classic.
“We decided this year to cancel the annual North/South Classic because we wanted to have our senior cricketers in T20 mode,” said local cricket chief Azim Bassarath.
“Remember they are going to play in the regional T20 cricket series in January, so we wanted some meaningful T20 stuff for them and not the longer version, which was the North/South Classic.
“In order to give them good preparation, we decided to contact the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) and they kindly obliged to send their team to T&T to play in the series.
“Guyana are the defending champions and we are happy to report that both Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan have confirmed their availability for the series.”
Guyana are defending regional T20 champions after beating Barbados in the final last August while T&T have in the past won the now defunct Stanford tournament.
In the 2011 CT20, Guyana will campaign in Group A with Jamaica, Combined Campuses and Colleges, Windward Islands and Somerset while T&T do battle in Group B with Barbados, Canada, Hampshire and Leeward Islands.
“All in all we are trying our best to provide our team with the best preparation and we are looking forward to great things from them in the regional T20 cricket series,” said Bassarath.